The following sketches Banat history in brief. A more comprehensive
account
by Sue Clarkson is also available (26KB text file).

As the Greek historian Herodotus observed (Book IV), the area that was later
to become
the Banat was toward the end of the sixth century BC inhabited by
the Agathyrsi, probably an Illyrian or Thracian tribal people.
Around 400 BC the Celts moved east into the region and by the first
century BC, the Romans. By 107 AD they had incorporated the region
into the empire as the province of Dacia. The Emperor Trajan created
in 106 the town of Tibiscum as a Roman stronghold which became
the present-day Temeschburg. Dacia was lost to Rome 270-75 during
the reign of Marcus Aurelius and was overrun by various tribes of
Iazyges, Vandals, Heruli, Gepids und Ostrogoths.

Toward the end of the fourth century, the region was again overrun,
this time by the Huns.
After their defeat by combined Roman and German forces, the Gepids
inhabited the area until the seventh and
eighth centuries which saw the arrival of the Avars and Slavs. When the
power of the Avars was broken by Charlemagne, the region passed under the
control of the Bulgars. Before the end of the ninth century, the Magyars
or Hungarians arrived out of the east to conquer the region and hold it
until the Turkish conquest in 1552.

Prior to 1526, when the Ottoman Empire defeated Hungary at the battle
of Mohacs, there were several Banats (Hungarian Bánát).
These were districts ruled by an
official known as a Ban (a term that has its origin in a Persian word meaning lord or master
which was introduced into Europe by the Avars; "Banat" came to mean a
frontier province or a district under military governorship)
The most common use of the term, though, is
The Banat of Temesvar, which, oddly enough, was never administered by a
Ban. Ruled by the Ottomans from 1552 until 1716, it was then conquered
by the Habsburg armies led by Prince Eugene of Savoy, and officially
transferred to Austria by the Treaty of Passarowitz/Pozarevac in 1718.

During the years of Ottoman rule, the area was largely depopulated and
had a large proportion of marshland. Count Mercy was appointed
governor in 1720 and started the process of turning the Banat into a
settled agricultural region. In 1779 the Banat was transferred to
Hungarian rule. From 1848 to 1860 the Banat and the Batschka were
ruled directly by the crown. From 1860 until 1919 the Banat was
formally a part of Hungary.

Between 1722 and 1787, many
skilled settlers were recruited from Habsburg domains in the Holy Roman
Empire to populate the newly-gained lands. The first settlers came
primarily from Swabia, hence the term Donauschwaben.

Immigration occurred sporadically after that time and was known as the
"Schwabenzug" or "Swabian Migration".
The original Swabian Migration also included French-, Italian-, and
Spanish-speaking immigrants. The first two migrations were restricted to Roman
Catholics, but the third was also open to Protestants. Emperor Josef II
had granted freedom of religion in the Habsburg Empire by that time.

The early immigrants were recruited and given travel stipends and loans
for seeds, implements, and tools, and were apportioned houses in
master-planned villages. Fields were allotted in farmlands surrounding
the villages. Freedom from serfdom, initial exemption from taxes,
uncrowded land, startup help, and association with the Habsburgs were
the lures for immigration to a frontier region which was beset by
border wars, marshland, and illness. To put things in perspective, the
Banat was still a frontier region in Europe at the time of the American
Revolution.

The immigration of the "Swabians", along with the settlement of the
Military Frontier by Serbs recruited for settlement and military
service, populated a border region recently won from a perennial foe.

Jacob Steigerwald has written a review of 11 identifiable German ethnic
groups in Romania in his book Tracking Romania's Heterogeneous
German Minority from its Origins to the Diaspora(publication info).

The "Swabians" who hailed from various areas in Germany after the
Banat became an Austrian colony in 1718.

Descendants of peasant and weaver families from the Bohemian Woods
who settled near Mount Semenik in the villages of Wolfsberg, Weidenthal,
Lindenfeld and Weidenheim.

In the southeastern Banat around Resita (Reschitz) there are
descendants of Styrian miners and craftsmen who began settlement in
1725.

Many Germans in Timisoara are descendants of Austrian military and
civilian territorial administrators and office workers; there has been
much intermarriage with Swabians from the rural areas.

In the Satu Mare (Sathmar) district north of the Banat, there are
descendants of Germans from Baden-Württemberg who settled between 1712
and 1815.

The Saxons of Transylvania came originally from Rhenish Franconia
between 1141 and 1181 in response to the invitation of the Hungarian
King Geze II. Others came from Luxembourg, Lorraine, Thuringia and
Bavaria. The Saxon cities were Sibiu (Hermannstadt), Brasov (Kronstadt),
Sighisoara (Schäßburg), Medias (Mediasch), Bistrita (Bistritz) and
others.

Also in Transylvania, the Landler from the towns of Turnisor
(Neppendorf), Cristian (Großau) and Apoldul de Sus (Großpold) came
between 1734 and 1762 from Carinthia, Styria and the Upper Austrian
area around Bad Ischl.

The Durlacher Germans of Transylvania came from Durlach in Baden
in 1743.

The descendants of Bacska-Swabians live in the Transylvanian towns of
Aurel Vlaicu (Benzens) and Batiz. Their ancestors came between 1894 and
1898 from an area near Czervenka in the Batschka.

The Nösner Zipser in Transylvania have the same origin as the Zipser
Saxons living in northern Romania. The ancestors of both groups were
descendants of Saxons who settled at Spis (Zips) in Slovakia at the foot
of the Tatra mountains in the 12th and 13th centuries.

The Bukovina Germans settled in the latter part of the 18th century
from Württemberg and German-speaking areas of Bohemia and Slovakia (Zips).

During the period 1866-1869 the Kriegsministerium in Vienna started a
large resettlement program with the founding of "Grenzkolonien" in the
Banat Military Frontier of the southern Banat (for background see; Roth,
Die planmässig angelegten Siedlungen im Deutsch-Banater
Militärgrenzbezirk 1765-1821). As part of this program, eight new
"Marsh Settlements", among them Giselahain, Elisenheim, Rudolfsgnad,
Albrechtdorf, Marienfeld and Königsdorf, were established. Königsdorf
was settled in October of 1868, by 200 German families from Stefansfeld. A
massive dyke construction program was undertaken to prevent flooding.
In addition to the locals, over 2000 workers, mainly from Hungary and
Bavaria, were employed in this project in 1869. In spite of all this
effort, these communities were repeatedly flooded. Because of disastrous
flooding, Königsdorf on the Temes was abandoned in 1880 and the
inhabitants returned to their place of origin, Stefansfeld.
(Those tracking Stefanfelders, who are faced with gaps in the data, must consider the possibility that their people were in Königsdorf during this period.
Others of these Marsh villages were paired
similarly with other more established communities; tracking people
in the Banat can be eased by considering these internal migration
patterns.)

After the Treaty of Trianon in 1919, the Banat was split into three parts.
The largest part went to Romania, the western part to Yugoslavia and a very
small part in the north to Hungary. At the outbreak of the Second World War,
there were in the eastern Banat 300,000 Germans, in the western Banat 130,000
Germans and in the northern Banat, 10,000 Germans. During the capitulation of
Yugoslavia, 1941-5, the western Banat belonged to the Military Command of
Serbia, but returned to Yugoslavia after the war. Death, flight and expulsion
led to the disappearance of the Donauschwaben from the western Banat in
contrast to eastern and northern Banat where at least some have remained.

Born, Ignaz, Edler von, 1742-1791. Travels through the Bannat of Temeswar, Transylvania, and Hungary, in the year 1770. Described in a series of letter to Prof. Ferber, on the mines and mountains of these different countries.To which is added, John James Ferber's Mineralogical history of Bohemia. Translated from the German, with some explanatory notes by R. E. Raspe. 1777, London, Printed by J. Miller, for G. Kearsley. 320, [22] p. incl. tables. 2 fold. plans. Library: University of California

Horvath, Eugene, The Banat: A Forgotten Chapter of European
History, 1931, The Hungarian Frontiers Readjustment
League in Budapest, 67 pp. including appendices. Discusses the
effects of Trianon, history of Banat and information on villages.
[Available at the University of Pennsylvania library and NRLF (California?)]

Michels, John M., North Dakota Pioneers from the Banat, 1992,
University of Mary Press, 7500 University Dr. Bismarck, North Dakota,
58504, USA

Zimova, Iva. The forgotten Czechs of the Banat. 1996, Prague, Köcher &
Köcher. 53 pages. In English and Czech.

Historical Novels and Retellings

Julian, Astrid,
"Irene's Song"
[The German-Canadian science fiction author has written an
historical fiction short story about Banaters at the end of
World War II. The story has been published in Germany as
"Irenes Lied", translated by Jakob Leutner, in
Die Verwandlung,
Heyne Verlag, Wolfgang Jeschke, editor,
1996. The story has also been published in Interzone 69,
March 1993 in Great Britain and was a
British Science Fiction Association
Best Short Fiction nominee for 1994.]

Also, some home-village-communities have their own publications
(published 1-4 times a year) or have published village history books
with photos, town plans and lists of the inhabitants; you can write the
editors listed below or if none is indicated, to the editors of the Banater Post or Der Donauschwabe for the address of the chairman of the village of interest.

Romanian Government Archives, Timisoara
It is possible to obtain access to parish registers for the Romanian
Banat in the Romanian Government Archives in Timisoara. Request
permission by writing (English now accepted) to:

Send the letter six months in advance, as it takes three to six months
to receive a reply. In the letter, state the dates you plan to visit
Timisoara and state that you want to view parish registers, then give
the names of the towns you want to view. You will be allowed to
view only the documents specifically requested in advance, so you should list
the names of all possible towns in your request. No on-site requests
are honored. No photographing or photocopying is allowed, only hand
copying of records. The area where you work will be observed by armed
guards. The archive is not open to the public every day, but foreign
visitors are sometimes allowed access in addition to regular hours.

The Timisoara archives are located on Andrei-Mocioni-Street, which is
on the right shore of the Bega river, opposite the Neptune public bath and
behind the Medical Facility. The Archives are not far from the Continental
Hotel on B-dul Revolutiei nr. 3. It's about a 20/25 minute walk from the Hotel.

The State Archives are in the same building as the Municipal Police with
a separate entrance. You need to walk around the building as the
entrance is in the back. The building is concrete with a flight of
steps up to the second floor. The address is Str. Andrei Mocioni nr 8,
1900 Timisoara, Romania, tel. 0040 56 193463. Turn right coming out of
the Hotel and walk down to the Bega until you get to the last street
before the bridge over the Bega Canal (they call it "the river"), turn
left, this is Str. Mocioni. Walk down this slightly winding road until
you come to the municipal police. It's a concrete building with a
flight of steps. It will be on your left. Go around
(counter-clockwise) to reach another flight of steps. This is the
State Archives. The Archives are open from 8am-3pm.

You will have to fill out some simple forms with name, home
address, and reason for research. There is a two volume index to all
parish records in the Archives. You must know your town names
in Romanian! You must fill out a slip for each volume you want to
search; then, in each volume is a slip for your name, date and reason
(research). You sit in a room very much like a classroom with desks
(in fact, it is used for this purpose after 3:00pm). Supposedly, you can review
only 8 volumes per day. This may seem like a lot, but a large town like
Periam (Perjamosch) has about 25 or more volumes. You may not eat in the room,
reproduce any record (eg. by photographing it) or use pen.

It has been suggested that one could visit personally the Roman Catholic Bishop Martin Roos on the main square in Timisoara. He is a Donauschwab originally from the town of Knes and could be very helpful.

A number of the parish and census records for the villages in the
Banat have been microfilmed and acquired by the Family History Library
of the Church of Latter-Day Saints.
For more information, consult the
Donauschwaben Village List.

Cybertim:
A celebration of modern Timisoara can be found at
http://www.webcom.com/~timis.(Please note that the presenter of this web page lives in Florida
and is unable to help with genealogical requests.)

For the towns in Banat that were populated primarily by
French settlers (Charleville, St. Hubert, Solteur and Triebswetter),
there are two articles of interest in the
"Index des articles de la revue Généalogie Lorraine"

Last update:
10-may-00 (mf)
Norbert Bambach,
Dave Dreyer,
Monika (Kleer) Ferrier,
Helmut Flacker,
Robert Goetz,
Aleksandra Grubin,
Robert Sonnleitner,
Michael Stamm (authored history),
and
Henry Trapp
have contributed to this web page.
Created by: Rick Heli
Please forward any comments and additions to this WWW-page
(include the name of this web page as we support many) to
Monika (Kleer) Ferrier, email:
mferrier@fhs.csu.McMaster.CA
or to:
WebMaster